Brandon

one

SEPTEMBER

My dad's band was practicing again. The loud bang of symbols and guitar woke me up out of my sleep for the second time this week. I looked at the small pink Hello Kitty alarm clock on my nightstand, the one I've had since 5th grade, and it said twelve in the morning. I huffed loudly, kicking my blankets off my legs and they fell off the bed slowly. I stared at the ceiling fan above my head going round and round, listening to the music vibrating from the garage. Periodically it stopped, and I heard loud laughter or talking, and then it started up again. The moonlight filtered through my curtians and landed on my bed in stripes that I traced with my fingers. The music started getting louder and the voices did too. Annoyed I looked at the clock again. 1:26.

A loud highpitched sound came from one of the amps and made me jump. I knew it was my dad playing the guitar, because the rest of his friends played something else. I sat up and angrily smoothed down my long black hair and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I stood up and slipped a little from the socks I had on. I tripped over the blankets on the way past my bed, which made me more frustrated, and left my room.

All the lights were off, and it scared me as I walked down the hallway. I quickly went down the stairway towards the first floor. I felt against the walls as I walked past the living room and into the kitchen.

The music got louder and louder as I got closer to the brigh light coming from under the door that led to the garage. I opened the door and saw my dad and his band all playing and laughing. I stepped into the garage and my foot hit a beer bottle, knocking it into another one. I looked down on the ground and among the millions of wires and guitar pedals, there seemed to be 20 empty bottles around. My dad was jumping around and playing messy chords while the guys around him were doing the same and laughing.

He stopped in my direction as he heard me knock over the bottles and looked at me grinning, "Hey you!!!" He yelled loudly, so loud in fact all his friends stopped playing as well and looked at me. He was drunk, and so was my Uncle Jimmy, who stood next to him with a bass in his hands smiling at me.

"What are you doing awake?" My dad asked. A cold breeze filtered through the room since the big garage door was open. I embarassingly pulled down the shirt I was wearing that barely went past my belly button. It had a rhinestone heart on it and I realized I was wearing pijama shorts that were a couple years too small for me infront of everyone too.

My cheeks heated up and I just said, "Your music woke me up." A bored tapping started on the drums and I lifted my head to meet dark brown eyes.

Brandon.

His smile from my dad's funny playing faded immeditely when our eyes met. I hated Brandon. At least, I thought I did. Only because he hated me too. Whenever I walked into the room, his smile would drop and he would have an annoyed look on his face. Angry even. He was my dad's friend, so he was over alot. Him and his annoying girlfriend.

He came over almost everyday to play the drums. It made me furious. You would think he would play his own drums at his own house. But no, he didn't. Everytime he came over, she would come too. She would sit on the dusty couch in the garage and smile at Brandon with the most adoring look in her eyes. Annoying. Sometimes, he would smile back. I hated his smile. It made my heart race and butterflies erupt in my stomach. My dad and Uncle Jimmy started playing, and Alex, the guy who played keyboard, joined in.

I shly looked at Brandon again, but he had never looked away from me. He pushed away the long hair that fell infront of his face with his hand that was holding his drum sticks with an angry frown. He joined in with the rest of the band, when they started playing again, but he only laughed when Jimmy sang the lyrics wrong. I couldn't help it, but when I looked at Brandon, my heart beat faster. He had huge hands, rough looking that I wanted to touch, just to see how they feel. They led up to big arms, and he had tons of tattoos. His shoulders were wide and his neck was strong and you could see the tattoos all over his neck too.

He had his hair just stop at his ears and it was a little curly. I wanted to touch it too, and run my fingers through it. I hated how I kept on thinking about how handsome he was everytime I saw him. A loud banging on the symbols took me out of my trance and he was glaring at me. The song had ended.

I looked at my dad and he was too busy goofing around with his friends. I snuck out of the garage and into the kitchen. My face was hot despite the cold night. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water and brought it to my lips. Laughter from the garage halted my hand and water spilled out from the glass and unto my lips and neck. From the crack of the door, Brandon was stretching with his hands above his head and his shirt rode up to expose his hard stomach and tattoos covering almost every inch of his skin. I dropped the glass with shaking hands and it pinged loudly on the floor. Brandon looked in the door's direction and I dropped to the floor so he couldn't see me.

I grabbed the glass, breathing heavily, and began to stand up but my dad jumped on Brandon's back jokingly and he doubled over like he was hit in the stomach. My dad fell down and everyone laughed. I stood up with one last glance to the crack in the doorway and made my way up the stairs.

Brandon and my dad's relationship was odd.

They acted like kids around each other. Technically, Brandon was a kid to my dad. He was 29 this year, and I knew his birthday was soon because my dad wouldn't shut up about playing a prank on his 30th birthday. My dad was 45, and got played a prank by Uncle Jimmy on his 30th birthday, so it seemed fit that he pranked Brandon too, since they were like brothers.

My dad acted childish. Always laughing and joking. He had always been like that. Even more so when my mom began her new job when I was eleven and had to travel alot. She was gone for weeks at a time across the country and back for only some small number days. I knew he was sad whenever she was gone. Its one of the biggest reasons he started a band. He wanted to spend time with someone other than the couch everyday.

When they finally split, a couple years ago, he packed up all our stuff and puty it into his dirty green truck and let me put my feet on the dash and drove far away. He took only his clothes, a picture of my mom, a bunch of my baby pictures and all of his music stuff and left the rest. My mom was furious. She called and called. She often asked where I was, but I was sixteen at the time, so I couldn't sit home alone all day while she went and explored the world through her job, so he took me with him.

I wonder if thats why he and Brandon are so close, because he told Brandon everything.

If I sassed back about wanting to watch cartoons while my dad watched the music discovery channel, he told Brandon. If I got a D- on my math test, he told Brandon. If he found out I had a crush on a boy, he told Brandon.

Brandon knew more about my life than my mom did. And I rarely talked to either of them.

Walking back to my room, I laid down and hugged my pillow, leaving my blankets on the floor. I stared at the fan once more and the curtains flowing in the wind. At some point, right before I fell asleep, my dad came in my tucked me in. "Goodnight sweetheart." Was all he said. "Brandon said goodbye."

I knew Brandon hadn't said goodbye. He's never told me that a day in my life, but I knew my dad always lied and told me he did to make it seem like he cared. I hated Brandon.